Long-promised $25 Raspberry Pi finally goes on sale

Cheaper, stripped-down Pi available in Europe, rest of world "very soon."

When the Raspberry Pi project was unveiled more than a year ago, two models were promised: one costing $25 and a more powerful one for $35. Ultimately, only the $35 device went on sale, to extreme popularity, with possibly a million sold.

But for those of you who felt $35 was just too expensive for a computer, that $25 "Model A" is finally available. It's now on sale in Europe, and the company will "lift this restriction very soon so the rest of the world can order too," Raspberry Pi spokeswoman Liz Upton wrote today.

Model A has one USB port instead of two. It also lacks an Ethernet port and comes with 256MB RAM, as opposed to the 512MB of RAM the latest version of Model B ships with. Without Ethernet, users needing Internet access have to use the USB port for a Wi-Fi adapter. Thus, if you need Internet and an extra USB port for a keyboard or other peripheral, a USB splitter would be necessary (which may require a powered USB hub).

Model A does have key advantages in power consumption, however, meaning the lower price alone isn't its only draw. Robotics projects might be a good fit for the cheaper model.

"The Model A is a stripped-down version of the Model B Raspberry Pi, with no Ethernet, one USB port, and 256MB RAM," Upton wrote. "Stripping down the Model A means it has two important differences from the Model B: we can make it $10 cheaper, at $25; and it consumes roughly a third of the power of the Model B, which is of key importance to those of you wanting to run projects from a battery or solar power: robots, sensor platforms in remote locations, Wi-Fi repeaters attached to the local bus stop, and so forth. We’re working on software to get the power consumption even lower. And we’ve seen how well XBMC works on the early 256MB Model Bs we sold last year; it’ll work just as well if you want to make a $25 media centre out of your Model A."

It doesn't sound like there will be a huge delay before Model A is available in the US and other non-European countries. Upton wrote that "paperwork" is the main reason for the holdup.

Upton concluded by saying, "We are very, very pleased to finally be able to offer you a computer for $25. It’s what we said we’d do all along, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it."

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

The market this new Raspberry Pi is entering has changed a lot from when the first debuted. How does it compare?

Compare to what, is the question. At the lower power level it becomes more interesting for applications where you might have put a microcontroller board (Arduino or similar) before. In that context, $25 for a ready to go board of that CPU power is pretty good, but you have to have an application that doesn't need much microcontroller-like I/O.

Does an unpowered USB hub eat up more power than you save with the model A?Does an unpowered USB hub eat up more cost than you save with the model A?

If the model A has only one USB port and no Ethernet, then many applications will immediately need a USB hub, affecting both power budget and money budget.

Budding hobbyists may not build their own electronics, or interface with other signals on the board. They might just take the simplistic approach of using things like, say, Phidgets.com, that plug in to the USB. But then money budget and power budget are probably not extreme factors.

I'm still waiting on my B model to ship I know they're a nonprofit and have an exclusive US distribution deal, but still...I want it now!!

How long have you been waiting? My impression is that orders are taking about 2 weeks to fill, give or take. If yours is taking much longer, something must be wedged.

I've ordered five, and he/she is right...longest fulfillment was the first one, each one after that took a week to 10 days.

Hmm good - I just ordered a week ago and haven't received any news of shipping yet, but I did read they may be backordered up to 6 weeks (note that I only bought one). Anyway no rush, my personal UAV project can wait...

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

I am fascinated and confused by the applications of devices like these. I don't understand how it's so versatile, but maybe that's just my coding noobness coming to the fore.

I'm still waiting on my B model to ship I know they're a nonprofit and have an exclusive US distribution deal, but still...I want it now!!

How long have you been waiting? My impression is that orders are taking about 2 weeks to fill, give or take. If yours is taking much longer, something must be wedged.

I've ordered five, and he/she is right...longest fulfillment was the first one, each one after that took a week to 10 days.

Hmm good - I just ordered a week ago and haven't received any news of shipping yet, but I did read they may be backordered up to 6 weeks (note that I only bought one). Anyway no rush, my personal UAV project can wait...

I ordered them one at a time from Newark. Bought the first from RS Components, but was displeased with their communication...if you bought from them, you might get it before you get the shipping email.

I waited about a week for Newark/element14 to ship two units to me back in January, then gave up and paid $10 more for "new in box" units off of ebay. Had them in hand in about 4 days. They were as described, brand new inside their element14 boxes.

That seller claimed to have more than 25 for sale when I purchased. That's where all the stock keeps going.

Edit - when I gave up on Newark, they were still saying they were 4-5 weeks out from shipping.

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

I am fascinated and confused by the applications of devices like these. I don't understand how it's so versatile, but maybe that's just my coding noobness coming to the fore.

What'd you do with yours?

Sounds like he's using them as media players, sort of like a Roku or Apple TV.

"Raspbmc is a minimal Linux distribution based on Debian that brings XBMC to your Raspberry Pi. This device has an excellent form factor and enough power to handle media playback, making it an ideal component in a low HTPC setup, yet delivering the same XBMC experience that can be enjoyed on much more costly platforms. Raspbmc is brought to you by the developer of the Crystalbuntu Linux Distribution, which brings XBMC and 1080p decoding to the 1st generation Apple TV."http://www.raspbmc.com/about/

I personally use my Model B as a file server and remote torrent client (so I can start torrents while I'm at work and have them ready when I get home). It's also just a fun little thing to tinker with. I connect via SSH and it keeps my Linux command line skills up to snuff and I even have some games on there for fun (i.e. DCSS). It serves that purpose very well, though I don't think I'd want a model with less RAM and no ethernet -- but then again I'm not really the target market.

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

Then you should search a marketplace like Ebay for something based on the Rockchip RK3066.

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

Then you should search a marketplace like Ebay for something based on the Rockchip RK3066.

The Model A is really the one that fits the original purpose of the Raspberry Pi, i.e. a PC for kids to use in classroom/hobby settings. Cheaper is always better when you buy in bulk (and Google ordered thousands of these ahead of time for UK students), and less features is actually better for education, at least according to the original aim of the Raspberry Pi.

The original idea was that students are learning how to program too far downstream, aka, web technologies and the like. By giving students cheap hardware they can tinker with they can afford to make horrible mistakes AND have hardware modest enough to 'master'. There is GUI-based game programming software included in the default image for smaller children. They expected to sell maybe a thousand of these for that purpose, but after hobbyists found out, boom. They have sold more than a million so far.

There are, in fact, programming courses built around the pi, not just for children, but older students, too.

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

I acquired a (512mb) model B last week from a friend at work, primarily for use as a media center. Initially things looked quite promising: the raspbmc interface is a bit sluggish, but the Yatse remote-control app is quite funky and it was handling more video formats than my WD TV Live. On a less positive note, it doesn't have the "milkdrop" visualisations (presumably due to the CPU/GPU requirements) - which are a major part of the reason why I still have an original Xbox w/XBMC still stuck under the TV.

Alas, when I returned the next day for more tinkering, the SD card had become corrupted. Reformatting it has allowed me to reimage raspbmc, but I'm now going to have to spend a bit of time trying to figure out how to stop it reoccurring; a brief check of the raspbmc forums implies it's most likely due to either the overclocking settings or the power supply (I'm currently powering it off the USB port built into the (Toshiba) TV). More investigation/tinkering required - at least it doesn't take too long to re-image the SD card

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If the model A has only one USB port and no Ethernet, then many applications will immediately need a USB hub, affecting both power budget and money budget.

I'll happily agree that the model B is more suitable for anything which requires connectivity, but for anything which doesn't (e.g. weather monitoring station, satellite/balloon payloads), the model A is ideal - especially if weight is a concern: lower power requirements means you can use smaller batteries/solar panels.

Overall, I'm not really sure I see the issue here: where you had only one choice before, you now have two. That's gotta be a good thing

I would pay around double the current Pi price for something with faster CPU/GPU to run my raspbmc clients on my TVs. It works great now so long as I use my tablet to do the navigations (via Yatse, awesome xbmc remote app), but its slow to do things like access video plugins like youtube.

The GPU isn't too shabby - in fact, it's anything but, supporting OpenGL ES 2.0 and H.264 acceleration. The CPU could use a bit of a boost though - it doesn't even have an L2 cache (the L2 is reserved for the GPU).

Forget model A. I want a more powerful model C. The device already draws next to nothing as far as power.

At idle, the B draws a couple watts and is warm to the touch. Unlike, say a smartphone with a more powerful CPU, which can stay connected to a cellular network and run a variety of background processes on much less power.

Your model C wouldn't be unwelcome, but 'next to nothing' is not an apt description of what the Pi's got now.

If the model A has only one USB port and no Ethernet, then many applications will immediately need a USB hub, affecting both power budget and money budget.

The article is a little unclear and misleading. The Model A has a single USB port for I/O, as opposed to the Model B which has 2. Both models can be powered through a separate mini-USB connection, so you could use USB to power it and still have a single USB port free for, say, a wifi dongle or keyboard. Wifi dongles exist that work fine running on power supplied by the Pi (they are cheap too, at about $8).

In my opinion "B" users want to do Linuxy things, "A" users want to do embedded processing things. Remember that the "A" still has all the "B" GPIO so connecting and controlling can happen easily. AND Raspian makes those GPIO easy to control.